https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/e2007-00027-8
Regular Articles
Conformational transitions in single polymer molecules modeled with a complete energy landscape: continuous two-state model
Department of Physics and Atmospheric Science, Dalhousie University, B3H 3J5 Halifax, NS, Canada
* e-mail: hanke@fhi-berlin.mpg.de
Received:
20
October
2006
Published online:
22
March
2007
An extension of the two-state Freely Jointed Chain model is presented in which the discrete energies of the two conformers are replaced by continuous functions of the conformer length. The statistical mechanics is initially developed in the Gibbs ensemble and leads to a conformational multi-state model. This is used to fit the equilibrium force-extension curve for Dextran. The continuous model also allows the use of Transfer Matrix methods to calculate all statistical properties in the Helmholtz ensemble, including thermal fluctuations. The latter are obtained with near perfect agreement to experiment.
PACS: 82.37.Rs Single molecule manipulation of proteins and other biological molecules – / 87.15.He Dynamics and conformational changes –
© EDP Sciences/Società Italiana di Fisica/Springer-Verlag, 2007
